Abstract
In order to determine the characteristics that govern the out-of-plane behaviour of masonry infills, two groups of wall specimens were built and tested in the laboratory. Specimens were assembled and tested as described in EN 1052-2 provisions and constitute of flexural strength for a plane of failure parallel and perpendicular to the bedjoints specimens. By obtaining data from experiments, numerical micromodels were developed to predict their mechanical behaviour. A calibration procedure undertaken and results obtained from the experimental campaign were found to be in agreement with those obtained from the numerical models. Additionally, former in-plane infilled frame numerical models were tested with acquired out-of-plane calibrated material model. No significant difference was found.
Highlights
Reinforced concrete (RC) frames infilled with unreinforced masonry units (URM) is a common structural practice in seismically active South Europe [5]
Hollow clay masonry units (Fig. 1a) were cut in half of their height (Fig. 1b) to emulate infill units used in research performed by [12] and units that will be used in further experiments
By comparing numerical and experimental results of Group I & II, the difference of maximal forces was calculated as 9.55% for Group I and 7.32% for Group II
Summary
Reinforced concrete (RC) frames infilled with unreinforced masonry units (URM) is a common structural practice in seismically active South Europe [5]. It was known that infills contributed in seismic behaviour of RC frames even in the late 1960’s. Interest in seismic behaviour of infilled frames has grown [3, 18, 4] on separate fields of in-plane (IP) loading, out-of-plane (OOP) loading and their combination (IP + OOP). The OOP field is based on analytical research of arching action, and numerical, i.e. computational research is scarce and is based on membrane and strut with centred mass models. This paper is a part of OOP research with the intention to account for properties which determine behaviour of infills subjected to OOP loading. 20 masonry wall specimens were tested and associated numerical micro models were calibrated to account for the experiment
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